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CQECRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BOY'S BOOK ON LOGIC 



A TALK, NOT A TREATISE 



BY 

WILLIAM TIMOTHY CALL 



Price, 50 Cents 



W. T. CALL 

669 East 32d Street 

brooklyn, n. y. 

1914 



~^C \c>\ 
£3 



COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY 

WILLIAM TIMOTHY CALL 



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JAN 27 
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PREFACE 

Because I think boys have open minds, this 
book has been made for boys only. They like 
to take a watch apart to see what there is in 
it. They care nothing for style and dignity 
and pretension, which the older fellows so 
dearly love. The poet Keats discovered that 
the imagination of a boy is healthy. 

Girls believe there is no fun in thinking un- 
less it is about some person. 

The old folks do not like to look into things 
because it disturbs their serenity. They re- 
gard boys as little animals with inquiring 
minds. Their own minds are packed with 
judgments and convictions that other people 
have rammed into them, and they think peace 
and rest the only fun in the world. We know 
what Dr. Osier said of them, even if we are 
not sure of what he meant. Most of us think 
he meant that when their minds are completely 
packed for the long journey they may as 

3 



well take the first train for their destination. 

Boys go at things, and overhaul them for 
amusement, sometimes for deviltry. They like 
to get into an old attic on a rainy day and take 
a look at the relics. 

You are to understand, boys, that you are to 
regard me as nothing more than a frolick- 
some guide, ready to pull out anything, and 
say something about it that you are not obliged 
to believe. I will do the dusting, and you may 
do the thinking. 

W. T. CALL. 

New York, December, 1913. 



BOY'S BOOK ON LOGIC 



You have studied arithmetic, geography, and 
grammar; but have you studied logic? Have 
you ever opened a textbook on logic? 

No? 

Then, may be, you are not missing much, for 
some persons, even men in the front rank of 
wisdom, have said that logic as a science is 
pretension and humbug. They declare (and I 
believe it) that the rules of logic can not do 
anything for you that plain common sense, 
otherwise known as gumption, can not do for 
you. So be it, but — 

Well, when I was a boy I had a habit of 
peeking into all sorts of books to see what I 
could find that was interesting. Among the 
notions that fascinated me was the impression 
that, if I could only understand all there is in 
a book on logic, I would be able to pick out 



what is true and what is false in what I heard 
or read, unless, of course, I was dealing with 
lies I could not nail, or with facts beyond my 
reach. So far as arguments, or disputes about 
the reasonableness of religious or other ideas, 
were concerned, I thought logic was a magic 
key. In other words, I thought logic pointed 
out the truth. 

I was not foolish enough to believe that 
everything that may be logically true must also 
be actually true. The ancients seem to have 
believed that, and they devoted their mental 
energies mostly to dispute. But it should be 
remembered that they did not have to make a 
living, as they had slaves to do that for them. 
The main business of the ancients was to fight 
each other with a club or with an argument. 
If you could get a piece of the moon you could 
eat it. Why? Because the moon is made of 
green cheese, and green cheese is good to eat, 
and therefore the moon is good to eat. 

It is said that Socrates used to bring friends 
home to dinner so his wife, Xantippe, could 
feed them with gross food while they were 
feeding her with divine truth — and it is said 
that that is about all he ever did bring into the 
house. 



It was a long, long time before people would 
stand for anything but argument. In Shake- 
speare's day Francis Bacon advised people to 
get at knowledge by experimenting and observ- 
ing, instead of by merely arguing. He called 
this proposed method a new instrument for 
thinkers. Four hundred years before his time 
another Bacon — Roger (not related, so far as 
I know) did about the same thing, but the 
people would not have it. They thought he 
was dealing in magic. 

Jevons, the logician, says in his books that 
Roger was probably a greater man than 
Francis. I had supposed that Roger was like 
the other old worthies of the middle ages who 
knew all about God and nothing about Man. 
From a recent work, "Book of Facts," I take 
this brief sketch, in order to help Jevons ad- 
vertise Roger to the general reader : 

"Bacon, Roger ( 1214-1294) . He was a man 
of remarkable gifts. The invention of gun- 
powder has been ascribed to him. He is also 
said to have invented the air pump, and he 
was acquainted with the principle of the tele- 
scope and magnifying glass. He experimented 
with the steam engine. He was an unusual 
linguist for his time, knowing both Latin and 

7 



Greek, and also Hebrew and Arabic. He com- 
posed a large Greek lexicon and a Greek gram- 
mar. Roger Bacon, in fact, was one of the 
most remarkable men England has ever pro- 
duced. His views of many things were almost 
modern in the startling scientific way he ut- 
tered them. For a long time he was looked 
upon as an alchemist and sorcerer, and it is 
only in modern times that his writings and 
scientific discoveries have been rightly appre- 
ciated. He suffered two imprisonments of ten 
years each, because of his philosophical opin- 
ion." 

You see, in the old days it was important not 
to think of anything real. It is different now. 
As one of our writers puts it : "The two lead- 
ing ideas of the present age are Utility and 
Progress." 

But the force of habit is mighty, and many 
of us still persist in substituting force of in- 
tellect for obtainable information. For ex- 
ample, I was chatting a few days ago in an 
editorial room about the chief meaning of the 
word "propinquity" (whether nearness in 
blood relationship or nearness in position of 
objects), and we argued the matter until red 
spots came in our cheeks before any of us was 

8 



willing to overcome the inertia of laziness, 
and observe what the dictionary makers had 
dug out regarding its meaning. 

All logic really does is to show you how 
Aristotle and others since his time believe your 
mind works — that is, what kind of a mental 
process you use when you reach a conclusion 
in your thoughts. 

The mind seems to make a leap from an ad- 
mitted fact, or facts, to a conclusion, as a boy 
leaps from one side of a brook to the other. 
It is what you pass over in your thoughts that 
logic observes most minutely. Things change, 
but it is said the laws of the mind are un- 
changeable. 

The process itself is a very simple thing — 
merely bring two thoughts together in the 
chamber of the brain in order to create a third 
thought. Thus : 

Everything hard to get is worth having; 
money is hard to get ; therefore money is worth 
having. 

Stop right here one moment : Is it true that 
everything hard to get is worth having? Is it 
true that money is invariably hard to get? 
Is it true that money is always worth having? 
(See remarks farther on about quibblers.) 



That three-line form is the foundation on 
which all our reasoning rests; that is, all our 
judgments, all our conclusions, when reduced 
to their lowest terms, are of that form. 

I am not sure but that the most direct sensa- 
tion we can have — instantaneously seeing, feel- 
ing, or hearing something — does actually go 
through that fundamental process before it is 
recognized by the brain. Perhaps when a sen- 
sation reaches the brain it is there compared 
with other sensations, and is thus known to us. 
We know, for instance, that the sensation of 
pain may be continuously telegraphed to the 
brain without being recognized until the atten- 
tion is called to it, and we know that we can 
look at an object without being aware that we 
see it. It would seem that some process similar 
to that of reasoning must take place in the 
brain before we can know anything. But I am 
getting into water that is too deep for me, so 
we will go back to our logic. 

The specimen of reasoning I have given may 
be shown in a mathematical way, thus : 

2+2+2=4+2 
3+3=2+2+2 
Hence 3+3=4+2 

10 



You understand, of course, that the speci- 
men (technically called "syllogism," bringing 
together) is the process in its simplest form, 
and that it may be twisted into many different 
shapes, and may be stuffed until it fills an 
entire book. It may be forced to take a neg- 
ative form by using the word "not," or the like, 
and it may be so changed in appearance that 
its real outline can not be clearly seen. With 
the details of logic I shall not bother you. 

Syllogism, dialectics, argument, deduction, 
reasoning, logic, are words of similar mean- 
ing, just as battle, fight, combat, contest, con- 
flict, are words of similar meaning ; but are not 
precisely the same in meaning. The word 
"deduction" is used a good deal in books on 
logic. Example: You put ten white marbles 
into a bag, pick one out at random, and by 
deduction you know it will prove to be white. 
Process of reasoning : 

All the marbles in the bag are white ; 
The marble picked is from that bag; 
Therefore that marble is white. 

Deduction means "drawing from." You 
drew your conclusion from the "premises"; 
that is, from the facts before you. 

11 



But suppose you did not have all the facts — 
did not know that all the marbles in the bag 
are white — how then ? You could not be sure 
that a marble taken out at random will be 
found to be white. But suppose, again, that 
all the marbles you ever saw or heard of are 
white, then you would infer that the one you 
pick out will be white, even if you did not see 
the marbles put into the bag. That kind of 
reasoning is "induction" — a leading into. You 
are led into the belief that the marble will be 
found to be white. 

That is the nature of the reasoning by which 
we get most of our knowledge. You see in- 
duction is nothing more than deduction with- 
out all the facts cornered for us. We can not 
know, for instance, that all the large pieces of 
iron in the world are heavy, because we can 
not bring them all into our premises, but we 
can infer surely enough that every large piece 
of iron is heavy, because all the large pieces 
known are heavy. If there were but two pieces 
of iron thus far known, we would be cautious 
about a judgment as to the heaviness of all 
iron, and would ask the chemists to analyze 
the samples for us, and give us some inside 
facts. 

12 



Sometimes this induction business is car- 
ried so far that it becomes a mere guess — an 
assumption, a theory, an hypothesis. Thus by 
a sort of induction they conclude that light 
travels by means of some kind of a medium, 
because everything we know anything about 
(fish in water, for example) travels through 
or on or in a medium of some kind. So they 
call the medium of light the ether, and all they 
know about it at present is that they have given 
it a name. They have at least, however, a 
good theory to work with, because they can 
explain more with it than with any other hy- 
pothesis thus far tried. 

To most persons, logic (which, you see, 
sticks its nose into most everything, including 
philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, mathe- 
matics, and religion) is dry and profitless, be- 
cause the logicians have persisted in making it 
as intricate and scholarly as possible. How 
otherwise would they have the nerve to call 
it "the art of thinking," "the science of rea- 
soning," "the art of arts," "the science of 
sciences," and so on? 

But I think there is much that is worth 
knowing, and a good deal that is interesting, 
to be found in a textbook on logic. And if 

13 



you are lucky enough to get hold of a teacher 
who knows anything about logic besides what 
he has memorized, you will surely not regret 
the time you may give to it. If you have no 
teacher I would advise you to go to a second- 
hand book store, to get four or five different 
treatises of the most popular kind, and to 
read them all just as you read a novel — skip- 
ping the parts you are not interested in, and 
not trying to remember anything in particular. 
Then compare the books. You will probably 
be astonished in various ways. You may be 
astonished, for instance, at the difference in 
the books — what is treated as important in one 
being slighted or ignored in another. You 
will wonder at the way they tear a platitude 
to tatters, and will be nonplussed by a lot of 
highfalutin. Then you will attend to what 
you think is worth while, and disregard that 
which is sacred only to pedagogues. 

To me what have been called the "primary 
laws of thought" are interesting because I 
happen to be fond of rudiments — fundamentals 
— first principles — in any kind of science or 
pastime. These so-called laws of thought are 
so babyish it may be hard for you to believe 
that sensible men would speak of them. As a 
14 



matter of fact, some men of eminence have 
tried to laugh them out of the books. Here 
they are: 

1 — Whatever is, is. 

2 — Nothing can both be and not be. 

3 — Everything must either be or not be. 

Do you deny the truth of these laws ? 

No ? Well, then, how do you know they are 
true ? 

Oh, ho ! You now begin to smell something, 
do you? You see, my young friends, you 
must have some starting place if you are going 
anywhere. Even in mathematics they have 
laws of this kind, called axioms. 

I do not know that these laws are absolute 
truth, but I know they are true enough — at 
least for me. The reason I know they are 
true enough is that they have been reached by 
what is called consensus (a useful word, by 
the way) ; that is, they are conceded to be 
true by all the great men I know of who have 
examined them, and besides they are true 
so far as the power of my common sense can 
discover. My mind accepts them as true by 
induction (all the marbles I have heard of). 

15 



I can not establish their truth by deduction, 
as I can not get all the thought marbles of 
the universe into the bag. 

But wait a moment. I believe "everything 
must either be or not be." Is it true that a 
pumphandle must be either up or down? 
Must the falls of Niagara be either in the 
United States or in Canada? It is apparent, 
however, that the pumphandle and the falls 
must be or not be — wherever they are. Then 
if you break the blade of your knife so short 
you can not use the thing for cutting, it must 
"either be or not be" a knife, huh? You may 
say it is a broken knife. Very well; is or is 
not a broken knife a knife? When does a 
knife cease to be a knife? This kind of non- 
sense talk may be called casuistry, or sophis- 
try, or anything you like. You know what 
those laws mean, I think. It is your privilege, 
however, to say or believe you don't know. 

It is the custom with teachers to tell you 
that things of this kind are self-evident — in- 
tuitive. But that is the sort of hush-up argu- 
ment that makes you feel they know all about 
it, and that you can not undersand it until 
you know as much as they do. For my part, 
I have never been able to find any sense or 

16 



reason in that word "intuitive." I think all 
our minds can do is to concede the truth of 
axioms — take them for granted. Saying they 
are intuitive or self-evident seems to me to 
be begging the question. I do not believe we 
know intuitively that 1 and 1 make 2 any 
more than we know intuitively that 11 and 11 
make 22. 

A very great man wanted to prove that he 
was alive, but he could not do it, so he de- 
cided to rest on this as a starting place: 

"I think, therefore I am." 

It seems to me that there are two kinds of 
truth, just as there are two sides to everything. 
Where there's a god there's a devil. Nature 
seems to work on the two principle. Life 
and Death. An atom can not exist alone — 
must be at least double. The soul of mathe- 
matics is not Unity — the higher mathematics 
furnish the proof of that. Even our senses 
show a double need — two eyes, two ears, two 
nostrils, two hands, and perhaps the sense of 
taste may double up in some way. Of the 
two kinds of truth all I have any hope of 
17 



knowing anything about is the outside truth — 
man's truth, if you please. Absolute truth — 
God's truth, if you like — I must leave with 
those who are sure they have found it. 

I 



18 



II 



Another plaything in logic is what they call 
"terms." The name of anything is a term. 
What do you mean by "tree" ? Do you mean 
a pine tree, a spruce tree, an apple tree, or 
what kind of a tree? 

"Oh," you say, "I don't mean any special 
kind of tree, or any particular tree, but just 
tree — tree — tree in general. 

"All right," I reply; where is your 'tree in 
general* " ? 

Now you think I am talking foolishly again ; 
but I insist on some kind of an answer. If 
you say it is in your mind, then I want you to 
describe it, being very careful that your de- 
scription shall fit every tree that ever existed 
anywhere. Plato flatly said that your "tree 
in general" must exist somewhere, because 
you can not possibly think of something as 
not anything — but he left it for the rest of 
us to find out where it is. I do not think it 

19 



worth while to argue over that snag, as it is 
like a good many things Plato said just to 
stump us. 

Still I must say I do not believe Plato meant 
that a "tree in general" actually grows some- 
where in infinity, but that such a tree is con- 
ceivable. If you can conceive it, all right. 
Then I look up to you as having a superior 
type of intellect, for I can not conceive it. 
Plato deified the word idea, and perhaps your 
intellect is able to follow his into the realms 
of nothingness. 

I think the connection between a word 
and the idea or thing it represents may be un- 
mistakable, but I think the relationship itself 
is beyond the reach of the mind's eye. 

Your "tree in general" is known in practical 
discussion as a general term — a general notion. 
Your particular tree is a particular term — a 
distinct notion — a definite reality. 

Books on logic go into matters of this kind 
carefully, and analyze meanings with nicety. 



20 



Ill 



A young dog is called a pup. I had a little 
fox terrier with very thin hind. legs. Wishing 
to know what kind of a dog he would be, I 
put him into a syllogism, this way : 

All dogs with thin hind legs have unusual 
intelligence ; 

My pup has thin hind legs ; 
Therefore he is unusually intelligent. 

On the strength of this conclusion, I wished 
to give him a name that no dog ever had (so 
far as my experience and observation went) 
outside of books, and so I decided to call him 
Fido. 

One day while capering about near a target 
he was shot through the mouth. As he was a 
promising animal, we did the best we could 
to save his life, and he recovered, but with 
deformed vocal organs. He was unable to 
bark, growl, and whine like regular dogs, but 

21 



instead gave vent to sounds that seemed more 
like tones than mere noises. So I took him 
as a curiosity to some psychologists, and asked 
them to examine him with a view to the pos- 
sibility of his learning to sing. They said that 
was not only ridiculous but absurd, because 
even if he could develop the notes, he could 
not develop the intelligence. 

"Why," I exclaimed, "birds sing!" 

"Oh," they replied, "that's because God 
made them that way!" 

"But," I persisted, "it has been accepted as 
a fact by the highest authorities in logic and 
philosophy, that language is necessary to 
thought — what you call the higher intelli- 
gence." 

"Yes," they admitted, "without language 
there can be no thinking worthy of being 
called thinking, because the notions that enter 
any kind of a brain through the senses (the 
only way they can get into the head) must 
be clothed in language, so they may be dis- 
tinct enough to be arranged as individuals 
in an orderly way. You can not think with- 
out words, or definite signs or signals of some 
kind that are equivalent to words. Deaf and 
dumb persons have been observed in their 

22 



dreams to think with the signs of their fingers, 
as shown by slight movements. They can 
not get away from their language when they 
think. A dog has no language of any kind — 
nothing to put around his sensations but noise." 

"Well," I continued, "I have read about 
Kasper Hauser, and I know that some of the 
unfortunates you speak of did not seem to 
take to thinking naturally, the way an ordi- 
nary child is supposed to, and had to be actu- 
ally taught to think. How about that?" 

"We do not doubt that," they answered; 
"but although the habit of thinking may have 
been drilled into them, they had the capacity — 
the divine intelligence — that enabled them to 
link sensations and language together into 
thought." 

"Then," I remarked, "an intelligent dog, 
with thin hind legs, such as my dog has, does 
not have the right kind of intelligence — the 
divine kind — to have thinking drilled into 
him?" 

"No; he has not!" 

"How do you know that?" 

Then they became sarcastic, and Fido and 
I went out. 

23 



On the way home I bought a small rubber 
ball, such as children play with on the side- 
walk. I was thinking as only one of the divine 
products of this earth is allowed to think. I 
recalled that the only word one of the unfortu- 
nates knew anything about at one time was 
the word ball. 

At home I played with Fido for a long time, 
and the moment I got a sound out of him that 
was anything like ball, I rolled the ball. It 
was a long tedious process, such as trainers of 
trick dogs go through, but finally he learned 
to love the ball, and could ask for it so that I 
knew what he said — I mean what he wanted. 

Then I touched his mortal soul (not im- 
mortal yet) by starving him unless he would 
bark something that sounded like eat — eat — 
eat. That was a tactical error on my part, for 
he almost died from overfeeding, after he 
learned that that particular kind of sound 
always counted as a home run. 

I am not going into the wearying details 
of how Fido learned the only way he could get 
out, or in, or get you (oo, meaning me, his 
master) to take a walk, and so on until he had 
a larger vocabulary than some of the divine 
beings we read about in tales of travelers had. 

24 



I did not stretch his powers beyond what I 
learned to regard as his normal limit. I gave 
up all hope of ever being able to teach him 
abstraction — that is, how to separate the qual- 
ities, properties, attributes, of things from the 
things themselves. In other words, sweetness 
or sourness were properties not to be separated 
in thought from the word milk by means of 
words. Milk was milk, and there was nothing 
else to be known about it except that it tasted 
good or bad. 

As to conceptions (concepts, in technical 
language) such as your "tree in general, ,, he 
had no use for them, and did not understand 
them any better than we do. Induction was 
his favorite style of reasoning, and he indulged 
in it to excess. In our walks, if there were 
birds in two or three bushes, he at once con- 
cluded by induction that all bushes had birds 
in them, and he would run to every bush in 
sight to test it by deduction. 

I think his telegraph wires (his senses) 
brought the materials of knowledge to his 
brain less clearly in some cases than I sup- 
posed, but the so-called law of compensation 
seemed to be there, as elsewhere. For in- 
stance, I believed I could see objects sooner 
25 



than he could observe them, and I was sure 
he could not make them out at a distance that 
was easy for my sense of sight. On the other 
Hand he could hear sounds distinctly that ta 
my ears did not exist until they became com- 
paratively loud and close. Of course in the 
matter of smelling I was nowhere with him; 
but I never cared much about that sense any- 
way, and never placed much reliance on its 
efforts to get knowledge for me. So far as 
touch was concerned, I think I was the better 
animal. 

As to our knowledge of what time and space 
are, I think we were on a par — neither of us 
knowing anything about them except that 
they are long or short, as the case may be. 
It occurred to me that perhaps the one prop- 
erty of extension was not enough to allow me 
to get any knowledge of time and space. It 
would seem that a thing must have at least two 
properties before we can know much about it. 
Our conversation was, of course, confined to 
common things, and, also of course, was all 
in pidgin English, not much better than that 
used in laundries and in the steerage of steam- 
ships crossing the Pacific, but the grammar was 
at least as good as that of some of our school 
26 



superintendents who write books on how to 
teach the untaught. 

One night (to make this tale no longer than 
Fido's) we were chatting in our rough way 
before the blazing gas log when I noticed that 
my little brute seemed slightly distrait, if not 
distraught. He laid his comely head on my 
Russia leather slipper, and with something 
like a sigh remarked (of course, not in these 
perfect words) : "I am not feeling quite myself 
to-night, and if you will excuse me I think I 
would like to retire." 

So I fixed his shawl on his favorite chair, 
where he curled up (after turning around a 
few times, as all his ancestors had), and was 
soon dreaming something unpleasant, as I 
gathered from his confused muttering. I be- 
lieved, however, that it was nothing more than 
the usual indigestion we all try so hard to get, 
and after reading a chapter or two of John 
Stuart Mill, the arch logician, I naturally fell 
asleep. When I awoke the silvery beams of a 
beautiful morn fell athwart the whitened case- 
ment. I shivered, and looked yearningly at my 
little pet. Poor Fido was dead! 

And now I say to you I was grieved — 
grieved in the loss of a real friend. And I 

27 



say he was my friend. And I say I ask no bet- 
ter fate than that my companion had earned. 
If the things that count in life are the things 
that count in death, I can not see wherein I de- 
serve more than he, for he was a better dog 
than I man — a better creature, with less of 
hate and spite and deceit and cruelty. And I 
say that if this mathematical point, not even 
a speck, in the infinity of space, which we call 
our earth, is ruled by an intelligence that does 
not allow these things to count — I say the 
name of that intelligence is not Love, but In- 
justice. 

Then and there I wrote his epitaph, with a 
beseeching appeal to logicians not to desecrate 
it — thus : 

All men are animals; 
Fido was an animal ; 
Therefore Fido was a man. 

I have no doubt you consider this sacrilege — 
a libel on the divinity of our genus. Then I 
must plead that I am not more base than 
Carlyle, the dyspeptic, who said most men are 
fools; or Ouida, the forgotten, who said that 
the more she learned of men the better she 

28 



liked dogs; or a minister out our way, a 
Scotchman, who said over the sacred desk that 
men are like sheep — as if men ever were so 
bloodthirsty, or so silly, as sheep! 

Be that as it may, you will find two things 
in logic — two central thoughts: 

1 — There is nothing great in man but mind. 
2 — There is nothing great in mind but 
language. 

And it is not necessary that language should 
be actually articulate; for it is nothing more 
than expression, whether in sounds, signs, ges- 
tures, grimaces, touches, or signals. But it is 
articulate language that has given man his 
power. All articulate language has been 
traced back to a few roots, and it is believed 
that these roots are but an advanced stage of a 
simple language, and so on back to the brute 
man. Some think man was "endowed" with 
the power of speech, others that this power 
was driven into him by the forces about him. 
We are all entitled to a guess. And why do 
birds have wings? 

No doubt you consider my dog story very 
absurd. If so, then you ought to believe it ; for 

29 



I think we can prove that the more absurd 
a thing is the more we struggle to believe it, 
or rather to make others believe it. Witness 
the great systems of thought that have been 
built up on the idea that a son can be the 
father of himself, and that if you have a 
bellyache you haven't got it. 



30 



IV 



But after all you must believe with Francis 
Bacon that man's lesser wants come first. With 
that as a premise, the question with you at 
the present time may be: Of what practical 
benefit is logic? 

Here is one answer: It helps you to find 
and describe, so others can see it, an error in 
reasoning, whether that error is in the use of 
a word, or in the way words are combined to 
deceive you. It may enable you to put your 
finger directly on the sore spot, without feeling 
all around for it. You put a tag on the error 
— give it a name. 

That department of logic is called the Fal- 
lacies. I will start you with a jaw breaker — 
Hysteron proteron. I wish they had called 
that thing what you and I would have called 
it, namely : Putting the cart before the horse. 
Here is a sample: Our cat is well and lives. 
Strictly speaking this is absurd, and not fal- 

31 



lacious. If she is well, she lives, but you avoid 
the laugh if you put the cart where it belongs, 
thus : Our cat lives and is well. You may say : 
Be happy and you will be good. That gives 
me a chance to quibble, although I know very 
well what you mean, and that you have mere- 
ly put the cart before the horse. If there is 
but one thing I am sure of, that one thing is 
that quibbling is detestable. 

All words are powerless in the presence of 
a quibbler. There are two ways to get at the 
understanding of a quibbler. One is to use a 
club; the other is to admit he is right. The 
former is quick, effective, and appropriate; 
but it is not advocated in logic. 

There are lots of things logic can not reach. 
For instance: My wife read to me the other 
night from John Wanamaker's 1913 Diary this 
(to her) pleasing remark: "It takes years of 
idleness to make a good checker player." All 
I could say was: "I hope that means me." 

Again: A Flatbush delicatessen man said 
recently to me: "The best caviar never gets 
out of Russia." I let it go at that, for logic 
could not go out and get the facts for me. 

Once more : Mrs. Call sent me to the gro- 
cery store to get half a pound of the best cheese. 

32 



While there a little boy came in and said : "Mr. 
Griemsmann, mother wants to know how 
much you charge for twenty-five cents worth 
of eggs." I thought I had in that a fine new 
fallacy, but learned the boy's mother merely 
wanted to know how many eggs the grocer 
was now selling for a quarter. 

Now here is a case in which logic shows its 
usefulness. Henry George, the author of 
"Progress and Poverty," was a tough little 
nut in controversy, as any one knows who has 
ever heard him challenge an audience. He 
once ran up against a statement by one of the 
big guns in philosophy that he had to beat. 
As it occurred in a book, he could not get at 
it by ad hominem argument (that is, combat 
the man instead of the statement, as a shoe 
clerk fits the head instead of the feet of a 
customer) ; so he went to some book on logic 
to find out how to get at the thing. Then he 
nailed the error — put a tag on it so persons of 
culture could see it for themselves. He said 
it was a case of "undistributed middle." The 
statement he demolished was like saying, "Peo- 
ple are crazy," instead of distributing the 
meaning — confining it in some such way as 
this: "People in insane asylums are crazy." 
33 



Mr. George's problem was not simple like this 
rough example, but the logical key he used un- 
locked the complicated mystery. 

Logic, you see, showed him how to go at it, 
just as dentistry shows the scoundrel with the 
little picks how to go at a bad tooth. 

The technical words used in logic are dis- 
heartening, of course, as in all studies, profes- 
sions, or pastimes. If you say, "I can not 
saw wood, because my grandfather was a sea- 
captain," I might reply, "That has nothing to 
do with the matter" ; and you could come back 
with, "Why hasn't it?" 

But if we knew something about logic we 
could stop the foolish controversy at once by 
observing that we had before us a case of 
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning literally, 
"After this therefore on account of this." 

Perhaps you do not take in the full mean- 
ing of this kind of talk. Well, don't blame 
your intellect or your training hastily, but re- 
member the drill of the awkward! squad in all 
fields of knowledge. 

Fallacies in thinking take many forms. It 

is mere pedagoguery to give a special name to 

every form of fallacy. "We are seven" has 

long been the popular estimate of their num- 

34 



ber, with some rules and a few phrases similar 
to those I have already employed to serve as 
useful tools. Let us examine the seven kinds, 
which are known as the Material Fallacies of 
Aristotle. School manuals may say, "Material 
fallacies lie properly beyond the province of 
logic," but my guess is, No. 



35 



Material fallacies are those found in the 
matter — in the meanings of the words — rather 
than in the breaking of some rule of logic. 
We will start with an old-time sample. 

1 
The meat you buy is raw ; 
The meat you eat is the meat you buy ; 
Therefore the meat you eat is raw. 

This shows what is called the "Fallacy of 
Accident." The word "accident" means in 
this example that the word "raw" in the first 
line stands for meat in the shop, while in the 
second line it is forced to stand for meat on 
the table — two different conditions or "acci- 
dents" of meat. 

2 

Harmful things are to be avoided ; 

Dancing is harmful ; 

Therefore dancing is to be avoided. 

This shows the fallacy of "Secundum Quid," 
which means, Under certain conditions. The 
36 



sense of the second line is that dancing is 
harmful — under certain conditions, as when 
indulged in to excess. This is practically the 
same kind of fallacy as No. 1, but the books 
usually make a species of it. 



There is no proof that matter is real ; 
If real, we could find the proof ; 
Therefore there is no matter. 

This is not a correct example of No. 3 fal- 
lacy. Logicians agree that the nature of this 
fallacy is such that it does not permit of a 
precise example in the three-line form here 
shown. For the very purpose of the fallacy 
is to shift the attention from the point, and 
lead you to believe that the point has been 
established. The point is blinded from you, 
or you lose sight of it, or it is ignored, and 
the opinion you form is an "Irrelevant Con- 
clusion." For instance, when some one 
against whom you have a grievance makes you 
laugh so much that you think he is not a bad 
fellow after all, you are a victim of this mighty 
fallacy technically known as "Ignoratio 
Elenchi." What has making you laugh to do 

37 



with the fact that the other fellow may have 
lied about you? Some persons see no error 
in reasoning such as the following: "Abra 
Cadabra can not be a wicked man, although 
he did wreck railroads and corner food pro- 
ducts, because he is known to be a model 
husband and a loving father." 

There are various ways to get at you so 
you may think I have proved that matter can 
not be real. Perhaps I may shift your atten- 
tion to the chemistry of matter thus : A French 
scientist has shown that by counting the mole- 
cules of hydrogen gas at the rate of one mole- 
cule for every one-millionth of a second, it 
would take more than a thousand years to 
count all the molecules in a portion of hydro- 
gen gas not larger than the head of an or- 
dinary pin. But molecules come from atoms, 
and atoms from ions, electrons, positive and 
negative effects, and so on down to pure force, 
which of course is nothing but a manifestation 
of will ; and moreover this physical analysis is 
buttressed by the findings of the latest school 
of Continental philosophy, who say that mat- 
ter is but a gross form of mind. Hence you 
may see for yourself that there is no such thing 
as actual matter. 

38 



If you are led in this way to commit intel- 
lectual suicide, you have been kept in "ignor- 
ance of the refutation," as logicians would say. 
Now it was decided by philosophers hundreds 
of years ago that there is no real matter. But 
about two hundred years ago one of their num- 
ber made another discovery, which shook the 
very foundations of the world of thought. He 
proved that not only is there no such thing 
as matter, but also that there is no such thing 
as mind. What happened then? Why, what 
could happen? The inevitable — a deadlock in 
philosophy. And there has been nothing but 
nothing ever since — except for those who be- 
lieve that the knowledge we get through our 
senses is the only real knowledge we can get. 

So if you wake up in jail sometime, you may 
have the consolation of thinking: "No matter, 
never mind." 

The fallacy of "Ignoratio Elenchi" is so 
comprehensive that in some books on logic a 
dozen or more pages are devoted to illustra- 
tions and explanations of its devious forms and 
ways. 

Steer your victim off the track, and you have 
him in the woods where you want him. 
39 



4 
Simplicity is the essence of immortality; 
The soul is simplicity itself; 
Therefore the soul is immortal. 

Here (and of course the ideas thus awk- 
wardly forced into three lines should be pre- 
sented in a labrynth of words) I have tried to 
prove one thing by virtually the same thing — 
I have committed "Petitio Principii" — I have 
"begged the question." To "beg the question" 
has nothing to do with pleading to be believed. 

The pivot on which this style of fallacy most 
frequently turns is what is known as a "ques- 
tion-begging epithet," usually introduced in an 
offhand way as if only incidentally important. 
Thus, if you tell me you can not please your 
teacher because she is tyrannical, you have 
begged the question, which is: What have 
you done to displease her? Our common talk 
is apt to contain a sprinkling of question- 
begging epithets, and the person who finds 
them gives us the impression of being too keen 
to be humbugged in the ordinary way. 

What is called "reasoning in a circle" belongs 
under this same head. The circular style of 
argument is a great favorite with advertising 
40 



solicitors and other business men. Reduced to 
its lowest terms it looks like this : 

Success brings advertising; 
I advise you to advertise ; 
Because advertising brings success. 

I again ask you to remember that fal- 
lacies which are obvious when forced into the 
three-line mould are not always manifest when 
shrewdly padded. 



Baseball is the most popular American game ; 

Cricket is not so lively a pastime ; 

Therefore baseball is better than cricket. 

This shows in the rough way the "Fallacy 
of the Consequent," technically termed "Non 
Sequitur" ; that is, it does not follow. From 
what goes before in the argument, there is no 
valid reason for the conclusion that baseball 
is a better game than cricket. This might be 
called the fallacy, for the word fallacy implies 
a conclusion that is not warranted by the 
premises. 

41 



The Emperor sneezed ; 
Then there was an earthquake; 
Therefore the Emperor should have been 
careful not to catch cold. 

Here we have the "Fallacy of False Cause," 
expressed in Latin by the phrase which means 
"After this, therefore on account of this." 
Many superstitions are founded on this fal- 
lacy. Many convictions in every day thinking 
are due to it. 



Have you left off beating your mother? 
You ought to be ashamed ; 
Therefore I want an answer. 

This shows (the first lipe being all there is 
to it, and the only way the ancients stated it) 
the "Fallacy of Many Questions." It is on its 
face absurd, because you can not answer the 
question directly without admitting something 
you never began to do. It is two questions 
put in one, and is a favorite trap with cross- 
examiners : "Did you tell any one what you 
42 



saw ? Yes or no, now ; remember you are under 
oath." 

It is worth while to be able to explain by 
a logical term, "The Fallacy of Many Ques- 
tions," why it is not a fair question, instead of 
being obliged to go into a detailed demonstra- 
tion of its unfairness. 



43 



VI 



Fallacies are not illusions. An illusion is 
an unsound conclusion due to a flaw in the 
mind's eye — a mistake of fancy rather than 
judgment. Fallacy is delusion — the reasoner 
fools himself. Sophistry is fallacy, but of the 
kind that is hard to get at — subtle; the rea- 
soner fools you. 

The ancients loved sophistry. A clear headed 
writer has said: "When Bacon had analyzed 
the philosophy of the ancients he found it 
speculative. The great highways of life were 
deserted. Nature had scarcely been consulted 
by the ancient philosophers. They had looked 
within, and not without. Bacon broke the 
bars of the mental prison house; bade the 
mind go free, and investigate nature." 

Their most famous subtlety puzzle is that 

there can be no such thing as motion. For, 

they said, if an arrow moves, it must move in 

the place where it is or in the place where it 

44 



is not; and if it moves it can not be in the 
place where it is. 

What's the trouble? Logicians have used 
reams of paper to explain the thing. I will 
quote the conclusion given in the leading text 
book of the present time, thus: "The body 
moves between the place where it is at one mo- 
ment and the place where it will be at the next 
moment." 

If that explanation satisfies you I would ask 
you to state where the arrow is "between" 
those two moments. 

Personally speaking, I want something bet- 
ter than that to give ease to my mind. So I 
am obliged to manufacture a tag for this kind 
of trick with words, and it suits me to call it 
the "Fallacy of the Humbug of Infinity." 
That satisfies me, for I am content to believe 
that the powers of my mind are limited, and 
I am not bothered by the hopeless task of try- 
ing to split up a moment of time or a portion 
of space into smaller moments and smaller 
portions, and then keep on halving them. It's 
the same old tortoise and the same old jack- 
rabbit. If you know what infinity is, for 
45 



heaven's sake don't tell the rest of us for we 
don't want to know. A man once told that 
secret in a book, and he has never been for- 
given. 



46 



VII 

You have seen from the childish examples 
I have borrowed or made up (perhaps not in 
all cases technically perfect), and forced into 
the form of three lines (for the sake of uni- 
formity) that the fallacies of logic run into 
each other in a confusing way. You see they 
are not really distinct, in the sense of discon- 
nected and clear cut. You see that, as Thom- 
son in his "Laws of Thought" puts it, "An 
attempt to reduce to its technical forms the 
first few pages of any scientific work has gen- 
erally ended in failure and disgust." And you 
see that (as some logicians have done), they 
may all be pressed into a few moulds, perhaps 
into one mould. 

The truth would seem to be that if logic is 
an exact science it is a very simple one. It 
is all about words — nothing of any great im- 
portance but the meaning of words. When 
you consider that the word "weak," for in- 
stance, belongs to twenty-two classes, accord- 

47 



ing to a book of synonyms, and has ninety- 
eight meanings (and may have many more 
shades of meaning) , you see that logic is more 
a science of words than of processes of rea- 
soning. 

I would like to find a book on logic of this 
kind: 

Section 1, in large type, made up of winners 
only. 

Section 2, in type so small I refuse to read 
it, made up of also rans. 

Thus I would be able to be sure the sheep 
are separated from the goats. 

A friend told me of a young lady who 
wished to know something about logic, in spite 
of any acquired prejudice she may have had 
against using it. They gave her tomes. Her 
name is not Lydia Languish, and she said: 
"How the devil am I going to pick out what 
is worth knowing from all that rot?" 

Old Davies, the mathematician, tells us in 
one of his prefaces that "Science is the high- 
est class of knowledge." Then he shows that 
science deals with simple things, leaving the 
complex matters to art. You and I want the 
thread, not the web of knowledge. To change 
48 



the metaphor, we want our facts sifted. As 
Davies adds : "To begin at the right place and 
proceed in the right way is all that is neces- 
sary to make a subject easy, interesting, and 
useful." 

You will find in the books on the curiosities 
of mathematics that it can be proved by a 
regular, rigorous process that 1 equals 2. 
Nothing but logic can knock that out of shape. 

As a study logic is now under a cloud. Aver- 
sion, if not contempt, appears to be the feeling 
regarding it. Too bad! Too bad! For real 
logic is good for us all. It helps us in our 
hunt for error. If everybody was compelled 
to study logic, I think there would be fewer 
patent medicine religions; and I believe the 
quarrelings, the bickerings, the contentions, 
and the disputes that lead to so much bitter- 
ness would be shorter and less fierce.* A wise 
man has said that half the verbal wars in 
every-day life come from misunderstandings 
in words. 



*Since writing this I have been annoyed by a talker — 
a gas tank. I turned on him, like the worm, and demanded 
what he was after: "What are you trying to do with me? 
What do you want — information?" "No, not exactly that," 
was the honest reply. "I want what everybody wants — I 
want the clash I" So I have been forced to think of revising 
my opinion of logic as to utility by giving some consideration 
to futility. 

49 



The forms and diagrams and details of logic 
are undoubtedly fine intellectual playthings. 
For this reason, perhaps, the writers on logic 
and the teachers have pushed the thing far 
beyond its commonplace limits. They have 
tried to make it like religion, because it does 
spread over the fields of metaphysics and phil- 
osophy, and they have bloated it with worth- 
less matter of controversy. The professors, 
most of them, care little for the substance, but 
wallow in the moonshine of the subject, They 
put erudition first, gumption last. 

Hence these tears ! 



50 



VIII 

Do you believe in luck? 

Logic treats of luck, calling it causation, 
doctrine of probabilities, theory of chance, or 
almost anything but luck. 

Spread out the thirteen spades of a pack of 
cards in a semicircle (or an open loop) on the 
table. I say spades, but it's all the same what 
suit you use, as a jack is a jack, a seven a 
seven, and so on, and nothing else. 

Now ask your friends, as many of them or 
as few of them as . you please, to put some 
money on any of the cards they hope will bring 
them luck. They have the privilege of betting 
on as many cards as they like, and as much as 
they like up to the limit agreed on, but we 
will say, for the sake of simplicity, that they 
all choose to bet on but one card, and that that 
one card is the four spot. 

Mrs. Burnett's Fair Barbarian said : "Father 
generally comes out all right, because he is 
lucky, and knows how to manage" — which 
has no bearing on the case at present. 

51 



Now you, being the bank, take a complete 
pack of cards, shuffle them, and put the com- 
plete pack of fifty-two cards face down in 
front of you, so all the players can see it. 
Then you say, "Are you ready?" Then you 
take the top card off and place it face up at 
the right hand side of the pack, and then 
without waiting you take the next card off and 
place it face up at the left hand of the pack. 
It's all over now but the shouting. 

You and your friends are gamblers. You 
have all played the game of faro — the most 
intricate, the most fascinating, and positively 
the finest game of chance the Lord ever in- 
vented. 

If neither of the two cards you took off the 
pack is a four spot there is no result. Then 
you ask your friends whether they want to 
shift their money to other cards or to increase 
or decrease their bets, or withdraw them, or 
let them stand. They all (for the sake of 
simplicity, again) say, "No; go ahead." Then 
you take the next two cards off the pack, as 
before. This time we will say (so not to keep 
you on the anxious seat) one of the two cards 
is a four spot. 

Which one? 

52 



If it is the second card, the one you must 
place at the left of the pack, you must pay 
all your friends dollar for dollar as much as 
they put on the four spot in the semicircle. 
They are lucky. For if it is the first card, the 
one you must place at the right of the pack, 
that is the four spot, you would win all their 
money. 

That is all there is to a faro bank, except the 
details. But, ah ! what a complex mesh comes 
from those simple elements! 

Suppose both the cards you last took from 
the pack are four spots, what then ? Why, you 
take half of all the money on the four spot in 
the semicircle. It belongs to you, because 
that is the "percentage" you deserve for run- 
ning the bank. If a friend does not like that 
all he has to do is to keep his money off the 
table until he has seen three of the four spot 
cards come from the pack, and then bet on the 
single four spot card he knows is in the un- 
finished pack before you. No percentage for 
the bank then, except what is called the "per- 
centage of capital" — the bank's large capital 
against your small fund — and that has no ef- 
fect on a single bet, but only in the long run. 
If you call that an "imaginary advantage" for 
53 



the bank, you should remember that Lasker 
wins at chess by accumulating advantages so 
slight that each in itself may be regarded as 
imaginary. The faro bank dealer accumulates 
his intangible advantages this way. He may 
(and usually does) wipe your small fund out 
at some time on a bad run of luck, and he 
keeps it; for you then have no chance to get 
it back on a favorable run, unless you get some 
more money. The dealer has more runs of 
luck before him to rely on than you have. 

Hence all gamblers declare that the one who 
"has to do the guessing" has the "short end" 
of luck at faro. And they use that phrase care- 
lessly in other kinds of chance — calling head 
or tail, for instance. Really, however, the one 
who has to "do the guessing" has the "short 
end" in calling head or tail only because the 
other fellow may have an opportunity to 
manipulate the coin, while you have no such 
possible opportunity. 

To a novice a faro bank is a mixture of 
mysteries. Here is the dealer, with a crown- 
less straw hat on his head. In front of him is 
a small plain steel box holding a pack of 
thin cards face up (instead of face down, as I 
have put them in my explanation). He pushes 
54 



the top card gently through a narrow slit in 
the box. There is a steel spring at the bot- 
tom of the box, under the pack, which keeps 
the pack in place as the cards decrease in 
number. 

The chips (or real money if preferred) are 
strung out in the utmost seeming confusion. 
On some cards there are no chips, but merely 
markers, little pieces of bone or ivory, which 
stand for the same bet that rests on some other 
card. There are chips between cards. There 
are chips stepping down and trailing out in 
such a way that they include the card they 
are on, skip another and take in a third. There 
are chips back of a card. There are chips on 
the corner of a card. There are chips, so far 
as the novice can make out, not related to any 
card — seemingly mere "sleepers." There are 
"coppers" on some of the heaps — little counters 
which mean that the bet is that the card will 
fall on the right hand pile instead of the left 
hand pile. In the midst of the mess there may 
be currency, perhaps a bank note twisted up 
(for luck) like an old-fashioned lamplighter. 
The dealer eyes that lamplighter critically, 
and he may order it untwisted to see that it 
does not exceed the limit placed by the bank 
55 



on any single bet. There are plungers, you 
know, who believe the way to woo luck is to 
risk all on a single turn. It is not the business 
of the bank to do that any more than it is the 
business of a national bank to do it. The own- 
ers and employes of a faro bank believe in 
business principles, and when they want to 
play they go to some other bank. 

There is a strange jargon in constant use — 
soda, hock, double out, single out, both ends 
against the middle, cross colors, pot, call the 
turn, cat hop, turn the box. In fact, the vo- 
cabulary is large, and is less open to misin- 
terpretation than any other class of technical 
terms ever devised. The entire slang dic- 
tionary, what is known to truly good people as 
the vulgar tongue, prevails even among the 
"gentlemen rounders." They do not speak of 
a watch, a chain, an umbrella, or a leg, for in- 
stance, because, while those terms may be good 
enough for logicians, they are not precise 
enough for gamblers, who avoid all cavilling 
«md quibbling by saying, super, slang, mush, 
and shaft. 

There are nods and pointings and glances 
and ringer taps to take the place of promises 
to pay. There are borrowings not only from 

56 



individuals but from the bank itself. "Will 
you stake me?" is the formula. All contracts 
are made by the answer to the question, "Does 
it go?" 

Would a gambler deceive you, or cheat you, 
or rob you ? Yes, because he is a human being, 
and has, or had at one time, a divine soul that 
might have remained in the immortal class. 
But (and I hope you will not believe me) he 
would not find the same joy in doing you up 
that an honest business man would. You see, 
a gambler has the absurd notion that there is 
something worth thinking about besides piling 
up money. He likes to pile up chips, and when 
he gets more money than he needs he has no 
end of fun in getting rid of it. And not being 
allowed to have the kind of god that was manu- 
factured for us by the divine disputers of cen- 
turies ago, he takes the next best sort of 
idolatry and worships at the shrine of Fun. 

There may be fine free lunches — perhaps 
turkey, lobster salad, celery, olives, etc. There 
are perfecto cigars (toss a white chip to a 
waiter), and there is some drinking, but not 
much (nothing like the noon drinking of busi- 
ness men), as the interest in the game is stimu- 
57 



lant enough for most all but the gilded youth 
and the guys. 

There is a "look-out" sitting in a high chair 
to keep track of all happenings. There is a 
"case-keeper," who pushes the buttons of a 
"cue box," a kind of abacus, so everybody 
may see how many and what cards have come 
from the dealer's box. And lastly (to skip 
other details) there are the "books." 

It is the "book" that makes faro a scientific 
game of chance, if you will let me use that 
term without arguing about it now. 

The "books" are the records of exactly how 
the cards have behaved — I mean how the cards 
came from the box. A "book" is a sheet of 
thick soft paper, say a foot square, ruled, and 
with the names of the cards in the "layout," 
ace to king, in the left hand margin. As fast 
as the cards come from the box, they are 
checked off on the "book" in front of each 
player wanting to use a "book" (and most 
real gamblers do) , with a straight up and down 
mark for a card when it falls on one pile, and 
a naught for the other. A card is said to 
"win" or "lose," and when you "copper" it, 
you bet it will "lose." Then, strange as it 
may sound, you win. 

58 



Now we are off. 

What sense is there in keeping track of 
what has happened in a game of pure chance? 
Can there be anything in it but the superstition 
of ignorance? Are there really any favorable 
or unfavorable circumstances to consider ? 

Logic, mathematics, and common sense say 
NO. 

Well, the gamblers must at least imagine 
they have some justification for their "books." 
They do not study them for no reason at all. 
How do they look at the matter? 

Farmers in the old town of Flatlands used 
to get ready to plant potatoes in March. With- 
out doing it deliberately, they reasoned this 
way : The soil may be in a favorable condition 
during three or four days in succession next 
March, as we know from past experience of 
our own and others. Some years the weather 
has been bad practically all the month, and we 
could not plant. We are justified in taking our 
chances, however, and getting ready, for the 
earth and the sun move according to certain 
verified and accepted laws. 

Now the faro player has no verified laws to 
base his judgment on. All is random. But 
being a reasoning animal, he says : Observation 

59 



and experience are good in all but random mat- 
ters. I will try them even in random matters 
for two reasons: First, because they give an 
intellectual atmosphere to the play that adds to 
my pleasure ; Second, because they may be use- 
ful to me in spite of the fact that there is no 
law, natural or unnatural, at work, but only a 
multiplicity of causes that by their nature are 
not subject to rule. When I make a book 
showing how the cards acted, so to speak, up 
to this moment, I observe that they do some- 
times come out in an orderly way. I see that 
the orderly way is a streak. If I can get in on 
one of those streaks, I shall be lucky, and I 
know how to take advantage of the circum- 
stance. Perhaps a card appears to have acted 
in a very unusual way, so far as my observa- 
tion and experience go, and I may be able to 
catch it before it begins to behave better. 

You may say (and I unreservedly agree with 
you) that our gambler is relying on fancy, 
which is not true reasoning at all. That puts 
me up a tree, if I am trying to account for the 
use of "books" in faro, and I may as well admit 
I am feeling my way in that direction. 

There is an apple on the tree of knowledge. 
It is of a newly grafted species, and may be 

60 



called the "pragmatic pippin." William 
(brother of Henry, who is also brother of 
William) James used to know a good deaj 
about that fruit. He said that if you put 
the juice of pragmatism on something you are 
in doubt about, you may be able to find truth 
where reason fails. 

How? 

By observing the result. If the thing effer- 
vesces — that is if it works — it's true. 

Does our gambler's hindsight style of reas- 
oning measure up to requirements? Does 
it work out practically? 

The gambler believes that it does to the 
extent that he is more likely to be lucky (if, 
as the Fair Barbarian says, he knows how to 
manage) with a systematic method based on 
past performances than by relying solely on 
what he calles "dumb luck." Random guessing 
at haphazard events he regards as risk with- 
out hope — and hope he regards as an element 
of success. 

Strange! Strange! but perhaps pragmatic- 
ally true. 

Fact: In 1880 I was in a small city in the 
middle South, in an open-to-all faro bank, with 
some business acquaintances. There were 
61 



many bets on the table. There was not a bet 
on the jack. I looked at the "book." The 
jack had fallen on the losing pile seven times 
in succession. I reasoned that by all the laws 
of nature, and the eternal fitness of things, 
it must change its behavior soon. I put a 
dollar on it to win the next time it appeared. 
It lost. I put another dollar on it to win the 
next time. It lost. I did the same thing again. 
It lost. Then I put five dollars on it to win. 
It lost. I followed that crazy jack in the same 
way until every cent in my pocket (about 
$50) was gone. It lost seventeen times 
straight. 

The players glanced at me in a way that 
made me feel ashamed. A friend said : 

"What did you do that for? Didn't you 
know how that jack was acting? Don't you 
know any better than to buck a card?" 

"Oh," I cried, "that's all poppycock ! A card 
has no control of its actions. Isn't this a 
square deal?" 

"Perfectly ; and besides common sense would 
tell you that they would not bother over your 
small bets in a game of this size. You are too 
inexperienced in his kind of business. This is 
not like chemistry or mathematics. Do you 
62 



think gamblers are fools? Do you think 
their experience counts for nothing at all 
against your logic ? Why didn't you keep away 
from that card, as the other players did, or 
go with it until it took a turn, instead of buck- 
ing it? Even that nigger over there cracking 
ground peas has more sense than you have 
shown this evening." 

The following famous request for informa- 
tion was submitted to a learned society years 
ago: 

"Why is it that a dead fish adds to the weight 
of a tank of water and a live fish does not?" 

This gave a fine opportunity to the men of 
science to elucidate by quaternions the co- 
efficient of imponderosity of motion in water. 
But a gambler who knew nothing of real 
science put the formula of his kind on the 
inquiry thus : "Is it a sure bet that it does not." 

That is all I ever learned about the theory 
of luck, but I guess it is as much as any one 
else knows. 

Luck, chance, or probability, as it is called 
in logic, has been defined as "a conclusion for 
which there is some evidence, but not enough 
for certain knowledge." It would seem to be 
genuine common sense to believe that what 
63 



has happened to a card in strictly haphazard 
events has absolutely no bearing on what may 
happen to it. The gambler, however, believes 
in a theory of expectation. You must decide 
for yourself whether the mind has a logical 
right to deal in expectation in haphazard 
events. 

The unknown gods, CAUSE and BE- 
CAUSE, are hydras that rule the realms of 
Future Realities. 



64 



IX 



Hypothesis ! 

A shadow is not a positive thing — not a 
substance. It is a negative thing — an effect. 

Force is not a real substance — not a thing 
in itself. It is an effect — a result. 

Without real things, actual substances, 
having length, breadth and thickness, there 
could be no shadows, and there could be no 
forces. 

We talk about force as if it had an actual 
bodily existence, like air or water, for the 
same reason that we talk about the sun going 
round the earth — for convenience in express- 
ing our ideas in these matters. More fre- 
quently, however, we regard force as a kind 
of physical affair, which is at once no thing 
and some thing. That is an absurdity, so far 
as the human intellect is concerned, and be- 
longs in the list with faith, in which reasoning 
has no authority. I can not believe that force 
65 



is a supernatural power. Nothing supernatural 
has been so demonstrated that we can accept 
it without doing violence to our reasoning, 
our understanding, our common sense. 

Physics ends where metaphysics begins. 
The borderland is confusion compounded. 
The universe (the world, the stars, and all 
that in them is) is supposed to be swimming 
in a prodigious sea of ether (said ether having 
no weight). The gambler's theory of expec- 
tation is like a sure bet, in comparison with this 
notion of a sea of weightless ether. 

If force is a result — an effect, that leads to 
other effects, as the blow of a hammer leads to 
compression, heat, and sound — what produces 
the effect called force ? 

The answer here made (just for the sake of 
trying to manufacture an hypothesis out of 
nothing) is — vacuum. 

The force with which we are most familiar 
— so familiar that it seems like an intuition — 
has been named Attraction of Gravitation. 
That name serves the purpose for which it was 
intended. It answers questions. It assumes 
that there is a central power of some unimag- 
inable kind in each particle of matter which 
pulls on the power in every other particle, the 

66 



strength of the pull being determined by the 
size of the masses of particles and distance. 
The labor of this mysterious power makes the 
apple fall from the tree to earth. 

This is a natural world, so far as we know, 
and there are no powers operating on or in it 
that are not natural, as opposed to supernatural 
or incomprehensible — no forces that are be- 
yond the possibility of our understanding. 
Such at least is the assumption here made. 

Gravitation is then (it being my turn to 
guess) caused by vacuum, if force is caused by 
vacuum, and vacuum is nothingness. For 
force is force, no matter how it may manifest 
itself. 

It is not reasonable to say that one mass 
attracts another simply because they are 
masses. One mass must be doing something 
to attract another mass. If everything in the 
universe were absolutely still I can not con- 
ceive that there could be any force of any kind. 
What set things in motion is a question that is 
arbitrarily ruled out of this discussion. Mo- 
tion there is, and if it can not show itself in 
one form of force, it can in another, no mat- 
ter whether you call it energy, or electricity, or 
heat, or gravitation, or what not. 

67 



As an illustration of the effect of vacuum, 
let us think of the force called wind. The 
atmosphere has vacuum pits (not real vacuum, 
of course, but vacuous) at various times and 
places, which must be filled by the free atmos- 
phere near by. The particles of free atmos- 
phere are in a state like the particles in a 
compressed sponge, and spring forward to their 
normal extension. In rushing to fill the hole in 
the air they produce the effect called wind. 
Our senses telegraph the news to our brains, 
and we recognize force. 

The same effect is seen in rivers. They flow 
down because the particles of water are 
stretched apart, and one particle springs into 
the vacuum pit left by the particle ahead of it, 
just as in a row of bricks, the force that starts 
one is communicated to all, and finally passes 
to the earth without further noticeable effect. 

The vacuum in the row of bricks, however, 
seems to be behind instead of in front of par- 
ticles, as in the river illustration. But that im- 
pression perhaps comes from our inability to 
think of a brick as anything but a unit, that is a 
single big particle. We should bear in mind 
what we know to be a fact, that a strong force 
overcomes, so to speak, a weak force, and that 

68 



the strong force is applied at the top of the 
first brick. This overcomes the equalized 
power in the vacuum surrounding each par- 
ticle in the top of the next brick, and one 
particle is drawn forward toward another the 
same as in the case of the river. Thus one 
mass appears to move another mass by what 
we call shock. 

But shock must do something to the par- 
ticles in the brick. Then, you say, that original 
strong force (which we are not trying to 
account for now) has to overcome some sort of 
resistance, and consequently its power must 
diminish. So that if we make our row of 
bricks long enough the original force will be 
so decreased that after awhile it will be offset, 
and the bricks will cease to fall. What then 
becomes of your hypothesis? 

Now, an hypothesis that can not be knocked 
out by an argument would be nothing more 
than a mere fact. But my hypothesis is not yet 
a dead one. I know how to argue, too. What 
happens in our row of bricks is this: The 
original power applied at the top of the first 
brick would decrease and come to a state of 
rest but for the reason that the vacuum power 
around the particles at the bottom of the bricks 
69 



pulls in the backward direction as the bricks 
tip over. If you could apply your original 
power at the bottom of the first brick (leaving 
friction out of the question), they would all 
tumble the other way. 

Then, you say, if the original initial power 
were applied to the middle of the first brick, 
they ought not to tumble at all. That I do not 
deny. 

Every particle in a brick is in a condition of 
inconceivable motion, but the time of the ac- 
cumulated effect is perceptible because we see 
the brick as a mass. As the particles in the 
top of a brick move in the forward-downward 
direction and those in the bottom of the brick 
move in the backward-upward direction, the 
initial energy is conserved to the end of the 
row. 

So you see we have no use for that pre- 
posterous "imponderable ether" to explain 
what we call Nature. Gravitation, light, sound, 
and all motion become effects we can under- 
stand. If you start the first brick in a row 
extending from here to the dog star, it would 
take a long time for the bump to be felt by 
Sirius. Same thing if you use a bar of iron 
instead of*a row of bricks. Same thing with 
70 



light — it needs time. Same thing with gravita- 
tion — not instantaneous, though it may seem 
to be so. 

One trouble with my hypothesis is that it is 
based on another hypothesis — that matter is 
composed of particles (little bodies, Newton 
called them). Some persons contend that mat- 
ter (admitting that matter is real) is not 
"discrete" (composed of particles), but is 
"continuous," as water appears to our sight 
to be. You must decide that question for 
yourself. 

But granting that the universe is composed 
of particles, and that those particles are never 
at rest, we can believe that there is a vacuum 
hole where a particle was, and that the reason 
why the next particle moves is because it is try- 
ing to fill that hole. What started matter going 
is the chief thing we are all trying to find out, 
and shall sometime discover, whether we know 
that we know or not. 

You are at liberty to state an hypothesis 
in any way you please so long as you do not 
change the principle. If, as the popular saying 
has it, Nature abhors a vacuum, and if the 
particles of matter are forever struggling to 
fill the void in which they exist (thus breaking 

71 



down from overwork into decay and evanes- 
cence), the vacuum in a toppling brick is driven 
ahead (for it must go somewhere unless you 
can annihilate it), and the particles go forward 
by suction. It is believed by some that there 
was, there is, and there always will be just so 
many particles of matter and just so much 
void. We are now face to face with meta- 
physics. 

If an irrestible force is exerted on an 
immovable object, what becomes of vacuum? 

That's easy ! It slips back into infinity where 
it belongs. 

The difficulty of explaining why a large 
mass of little bodies appears to attract a small 
mass of little bodies, as a whole, is a matter of 
detail we shall not take time to examine. I feel 
that I have done my duty in illustrating how 
an hypothesis in logic may be made. 

If you will get up an hypothesis or two, 
you will find that you have had a share in the 
fun of thinking, which, after all, is the best 
part of logic. 



72 



X 

The motive is the man. I mean by this 
that if I can find out what you want to do, I 
shall know what kind of a fellow you are; 
for I believe man will do what he wants to do 
if he can. To what extent the little ruler 
sitting in the chamber of your brain, called 
EGO, is able to control the struggling forces 
around him I know not. 

We have now come to the question of 
Method. I prefer to regard it as a practical 
question. I shall here confine it to one item — 
how to get the information you want. 

It is the habit of our teachers to tell us to 
begin at the beginning, and advance step by 
step. They regard knowledge as something 
like a rolled up map ; and tell you to unroll it 
slowly. I do not think that a good way to 
study geography, or anything else. It is the 
inductive method abused. I want the whole 
map spread out before me. I want to be able 

73 



to get at the motive. I do not want to be 
lead. I want to see what I am bound to come 
to — to know why and where I am going. 

So I (and many others have the same trick) 
generally read an important book or article 
backward. Then if it is worth while I read it 
forward, with a clear understanding. "What 
are you driving at?" is the question we want 
answered first. 

If you take up the study of astronomy by 
beginning with atoms and advancing step by 
step to the limits of starry space, you can not 
see the significance of your first steps, and 
your teacher keeps you filled with doubt and 
confusion by answering your inquiries in some 
such way as this: "Learn what is before you, 
and you will see what it is all about later." 
There is sophistry in that. 

I will use a homely illustration so you may 
at once judge whether you agree with me or 
not. We will say that you want to learn to 
play chess. Your teacher begins by showing 
you how the pawn moves. Then you learn 
how each of the superior pieces moves. Then 
you learn how to capture, how to castle, how 
to mate, etc. You learn that the pawn moves 
straight forward one square at a time, or on 

74 



its first move two squares, if desirable; that 
it captures diagonally ; that it may be captured 
in a peculiar way as it passes over the two 
squares ; that it may change into come superior 
piece when it reaches the opposite side of the 
board. These things and many others you 
learn without seeing their significance, and you 
see nothing but confusion ahead of you. 

Now let us try the other method. I ask you 
to play a game of chess with me. You reply 
that you do not know how to play it. I say, 
never mind, let us play. So we play a game. 
When you go wrong by making an illegal 
play, I tell you to do something else. You 
quickly learn what you must not do and what 
you may do, for the actual playing dissolves 
your doubts — makes clear to you the points 
that are so clear to me I would not think of 
mentioning them. In the step by step method 
I might regard you as stupid, and treat you 
with impatience, if you did not see these points 
in advance. "Why," I would say, "I told you 
in the beginning," etc. 

But by thus working backward a few times, 
you learn the game by absorption, or as the 
farmer said, "unbeknownst." You see the 
"why" of the primary steps. 

75 



In a little old book on sleight of hand and 
conjuring I used to read when I was your age 
there was a trick that greatly mystified me. 

It was said that if you hold the beak of a 
farmyard rooster against the barn floor, and 
get some one to draw a chalk mark straight 
away from the beak, you may then take your 
hands off, and the rooster can not lift his head. 

Our text book makers, it seems to me, are 
obsessed in the same way by their vaunted 
"step by step" method. It is obvious, how- 
ever, that their books would stand little chance 
of sale unless made up in accordance with the 
accepted fashion. 

I would not like you to get the impression 
that I am trying to imply that men are like 
roosters or sheep, for I prefer you to believe 
that I consider the idiosyncrasies characteristic 
of types of peripatetic creatures that evince 
plotoplasmic inferiority to a subsequent — but 
I haven't time to finish that sentence now, and 
you know well enough what I mean, anyway. 

They say the blond esquimos can count 
no higher than seven. It would probably be 
a slow and unsatisfactory process for them to 
advance step by step to eight, nine, and so on, 
for they would not be likely to understand 

76 



what you are leading them to, or how far they 
had to go. On the other hand, if you put a 
hundred pebbles all at once before them, they 
would have a definite idea of what you are 
up to. 

The passwords in the "step by step" method 
are : "I don't know where I am going, but I am 
on the way." 



77 



XI 



Logic needs grammar, and grammar needs 
logic — a lot of it. 

Thirty years ago a New York judge asked 
for some documents, and the court officer who 
passed them to him said : 

"These is them." 

That is bad grammar. Why? 

It is not proof to say that it does not sound 
right. 

A grammar is a book of rules about words. 
An English grammar is mostly a book of 
exceptions to rules about words. The rules 
tell you how to hook words together. If you 
do not hook them up correctly the harness is 
a misfit. 

There is much folderol in grammar. There 
is more rubbish in those books than in a far- 
mer's attic. 

Grammarians hate to let go of anything. 
They hold on to the grammar of Latin as their 

78 



model. In English it is: we love, you love, 
they love. In Latin it is: amamus, amatis, 
amant. In English the words we, you, and 
they are separate words. In Latin they are 
endings, amus, atis, ant. In English it is: a 
dear boy, a dear girl, a dear house. In Latin 
it is : bonus boy, bona girl, bonum house. 

Latin needs a grammar ; English does not — 
that is, English does not need patterns, moulds, 
and models, because our language is, for the 
most part, a language of lumps. We do not 
have to shape it to make it fit. Jack is plain 
Jack wherever you find him; not Jacki, or 
Jacko, or Jackum, or Jackorum. 

Our grammarians love scholarship, and 
adore scholasticism. They prefer learning to 
knowledge. They have aped the classics, and 
have forced us into their habit. 

What I have told you they tell you — but 
not so you would notice it. You must read 
their private opinions, prefaces, notes in in- 
conspicuous type, and what they say between 
the lines, to get at what they think. All the 
big fellows say what I have here echoed. Note 
this hidden remark of an honest kicker : 

"The monstrous absurdity of marshaling the 
79 



five modern English verb forms into divisions, 
brigades, regiments, and companies," etc. 

They all admit that English is largely a 
grammarless tongue. 

Right here is a snag — what is grammar? 

Does it legitimately include spelling, punctua- 
tion, derivation, versification, rhetoric, and 
what not ? Yes, if you stretch it. But you and 
I think that the business of grammar is to tell 
us how to classify words into families, and how 
to make them behave without quarreling. We 
know that there is a noun family, and that their 
helpers are called adjectives; a verb family, 
with helpers called adverbs; a conjunction 
family, with their assistants called preposi- 
tions; a pronoun family, ready to take the 
place of a tired noun; and an interjection 
family, eager to show feeling as substitutes 
for gestures. 

In the sentence, "These is them," all the 
words are at war. In the sentence, "These are 
they," all the words are at peace, like little 
birds in a nest. 

If you refuse to learn anything about our 
families of words and their quarrels, you will 
find your name in the back of the books listed 
as that of an ignoramus. You may laugh at 

80 



your sister for the way she handles a pocket 
knife, and she may sneer at you for the way 
you handle words. 

Do you know what is meant by Orthog- 
raphy, Etymology, Syntax and Prosody? 
No ? Well, you are not thereby missing much. 
Same thing of copula, predicate, declension, 
conjugation, pluperfect, potential, pronominal, 
second future, and others of the book worm 
genus. 

All these terms, with their pals and con- 
federates, are relics of scholasticism. They be- 
wilder us and blind us to the things that are 
of real importance. The grammar compilers 
of the present day nurse and fondle the infatu- 
ation of the old days. They know and say 
it is old lumber, and they also know that it is 
disappearing piece by piece. Parsing is pass- 
ing. The danger is that the catch phrase, 
"grammarless tongue," may be used as an 
excuse. 

Perhaps you are now happy. 

Perhaps you are happy now. 

Perhaps now you are happy. 

Now perhaps you are happy. 

Now you are perhaps happy. 

Now you are happy perhaps. 

81 



You are perhaps now happy. 

You perhaps are now happy. 

You are now happy perhaps. 

We might go on shifting those five words 
and still make sense of them. Position is a 
great thing in English, as it also is in number. 
By using commas you may give the sense 
another tinge. With these privileges you get 
into print the effect of tone and pause in 
speech. 

It is the glory of our English tongue that 
you can express to a hair anything you can 
think. Do you suppose all the other languages 
taken together have clothed as much fun, as 
many jokes and witticisms, as the English 
language has ? Do you suppose this leaven of 
fun is more justly regarded as a product of our 
so-called Anglo-Saxon blood than it is of our 
Anglo-Saxon language? 

That is debatable. But the point I wish to 
make is that the way you shall put those five 
words together is, as they say, up to you. You 
are the judge. You must do the thinking. Gram- 
mar can not help you any more than saltpeter 
can save you. You must know what words 
mean; you must select the words you want, 



and you must put them together in the order 
you want them to go. 

What, then, is the use of grammar? It is 
this: Grammar gives you some general rules 
that show you how to play the game legally. 
For example: "These is them." The idea is 
clearly expressed, but not legally put. 

But the rules do not and can not cover 
everything. You are supposed to know that 
"shall have" is sense and that "shall had" is 
nonsense. You pick up things of that sort 
with your ears and eyes. We consider "shall 
had" bad English rather than bad grammar. 
The funny letters from Americanized foreign- 
ers, especially the Japanese, you sometimes 
see in the newspapers, show ludicious meetings 
of words. The writers may have learned our 
grammar thoroughly, but what is known as 
the genius, the spirit, of our speech is not in 
them, for that is the property of the mother 
tongue. A motor boat is fast when it is mov- 
ing rapidly, and it is fast when it is stuck in 
the mud. 

You may feel like challenging me to say 
what I would do with English grammar. Well, 
I would make it a grammar pure and simple. 
I would make philology, punctuation, rhetoric, 

83 



and prosody mind their own business, and not 
let them stick their noses in where they are 
not wanted. I would call the whole circle of 
this kind of knowledge, as we sometimes do, 
English. 

At the start I would impress on the learner 
that the place to find out how to use words is 
the dictionary. I would have it drilled into 
him that a big dictionary is a storehouse of 
grammatical knowledge, including the biogra- 
phies of words and the best examples of their 
use. Then I would give him English grammar 
stripped to the buff. 

I would explain the meaning of the word 
thing — the most comprehensive word in the 
language. If you spell it thingk, you have its 
original and present meaning. It stands for 
anything you can think of, whether material 
or immaterial, real or imaginary. You can 
think of a man, but not of manly (except as a 
mere word) ; of happiness, but not of happy; 
of hate or hatred, but not of hateful ; of paint 
or it (substitute for a name), but not of 
painted or might have been painted ; of answer, 
but not of yes or no ; of trouble, but not of oh ; 
of time and place, but not of now or here (I 
would have to try to explain that somehow, 
84 



because we know we can think of now or here 
as well as of time and place). 

Then I would give the regular old fashioned 
definition of a noun. A noun is the name of 
any person, place, or thing that can be known 
or mentioned. Then I would show you how to 
pick out nouns mechanically by using the so- 
called articles, the, an or a. You say the time 
and a place, but not the now or a then (which 
helps us over our previous difficulty). 

I would also give another test for puzzling 
cases — use the word about in the sense of con- 
cerning. Thus : I am thinking about misery, 
about redness, about John, about London, 
about width, about ignorance. 

Each of what are called the parts of speech 
(the eight families of words) would be sim- 
ilarly treated. But no hairsplitting would be 
done with the words that are nothing but 
couplings, called conjunctions and prepositions. 
Nor with the independent words such as yes 
and no, oh, fie, and the like, which gram- 
marians put into one family or another because 
they think they must classify them some way. 
There are tramps among words as well as 
among people. Rules are for slaves. "John 
is worth a lot." What part of speech is 
85 



"worth"? Is it an adjective, a verb, a prepo- 
sition, or something else? Is it worth while 
quarreling about worth? . It might be but for 
one thing — grammar by its nature is not an 
exact science. The old timers tried to make 
an exact science of grammar just as they tried 
to make an exact science of versification, 
oratory, gestures, and everything else they 
could get any hold on at all. 

As to whether a noun stands for one thing 
or more, and whether you are to speak of it 
as male, female, or neuter — you do not have 
to know grammar to answer questions of that 
sort. Number and gender are matters of 
knowledge, not of rules. 

You are also supposed to know how to spell 
before you tackle grammar. The plural of 
boy is boys, and the plural of man is men; 
but it is the business of grammar to tell you 
how words behave, not how they are made. 
You ought to know the plural of goat and 
sheep, and eel and mackerel, before you touch 
grammar. 

As to splitting up the family of nouns into 

collective, abstract, verbal, and complex 

groups, that helps to give grammar the odor 

of science, and there is little other value to it. 

86 



Of course the terms "plural" and "collective" 
are useful and have a legitimate standing in 
grammar. 

I would start in to teach grammar by means 
of two families — pronouns and verbs. 

Pronouns are not a natural family, like 
nouns and verbs and conjunctions. How they 
happened to get a footing on earth is a mystery 
the searchers have been unable to explain. If 
the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air 
have any language but grunts and groans, 
growls and sighs, croons and calls, we may be 
fairly sure they have no pronouns. 

Artificial they certainly are, but they are 
wonderful inventions — like the naught in 
mathematics. As they kick up more fuss 
and make more trouble than all the other 
families put together, master them you must. 
Then you have English grammar cornered, 
subjugated, subdued, and eating out of your 
hand. The rest is largely a matter of taste 
and of familiarity with good usage. 

Errors in grammar that are slips or over- 
sights are pardonable, but errors that come 
from ignorance are sinful. The word preci- 
osity means holding unimportant things 
precious. Persons of small calibre sometimes 

87 



get hold of niceties, and handle them as jewels. 

In baseball there are players who sit on the 
bench like dummies, and wait for a chance 
to break into the game. They are called sub- 
stitutes and pinch hitters. They are pronouns. 
All the regular players are nouns, just as all 
our words were originally nouns. The player 
becomes pitcher, catcher, shortstop, etc. — 
separate parts of speech. So nouns became 
verbs, adjectives, prepositions, etc. 

We say : "The man put on the woman's hat, 
and the woman laughed at the man." Or we 
say : "He put on her hat, and she laughed at 
him." 

There are not many pronouns — say fifty, 
to avoid dispute. We really need a few new 
ones. They have been invented, but not 
accepted. Example: "Ask your teacher for 
your teacher's book." I must not say his book 
or her book, unless I know whether your 
teacher is a he or a she. ("He" and "she" are 
here by violence changed from pronouns into 
nouns) . If we could have one of the suggested 
pronouns, hiser, meaning his or her as the case 
may be, we could say at once, "ask for hiser 
book." 

88 



The English language is as you find it, not 
as it was, or as it should be, or as it may 
become. The Sanscrit language is dead. 

I would not try to arrange the little pronoun 
family into squads and ranks and files, calling 
them personal, possessive, relative, interrog- 
ative, single, compound, etc.; nor would I 
cavil as to whether they were half adjective 
and half pronoun by using such terms as 
pronominal, distributive, demonstrative, indefi- 
nite and the like. So long as a word is used 
as a substitute for some thingk, it is a pronoun. 
The more you monkey with a pronoun the 
worse it acts. Handle it carefully ; don't twist 
and squeeze and hammer it. 

My modern grammar, then, would be de- 
voted principally to pronouns and verbs. If 
you were allowed to put your work in on those 
families, the rest of grammar would be 
nothing to you but what it is — common sense. 
You cannot get much real knowledge of any- 
thing when your attention is monopolized by 
trimmings. 

The pronoun and the verb are as the frame- 
work of grammar. The word verb literally 
means the word. It is called the word because 
it is the soul of language. You may put the 
89 



words of the other families together in any 
way you please, but they are lifeless, meaning- 
less, until you give them a soul — a verb. That 
is why verbs alone of all the families have a 
king. The name of this king is Be — King Be, 
if you please. He stands for existence, in 
action or not in action. All other verbs might 
be wiped off the earth, and Be, by means of 
his various forms, could do all the work. 
Thus, if we wished to say, "The boy runs," 
we could convey the idea by saying : "The boy 
is in motion with his swift legs." If, "John 
loves Mary," we could make it, "John is in 
love with Mary." If, "You must not do that," 
we could say, "You are not to be at that." Of 
course we need all the verbs we have, because 
they are convenient, but the King could do the 
work of the others if necessary. 

When you come to piling up forms of verbs 
into "divisions, brigades, regiments and com- 
panies," and to giving them moods and voices, 
like human beings, you are simply showing 
them on dress parade. That may be good 
enough as an exercise or pastime, but you 
ought not to mistake it for the real thing. "He 
was killed a bear" is not a matter of voice, but 
90 



of sense. "He was given a party" is not a 
matter of grammar, but of English. 

The chief difficulty in grammar is what is 
called "case," a term that has come down to 
or up to us from the ancients. It means a 
"falling," and is said to have been adopted 
because nouns and pronouns seem to fall on 
verbs. In "These is them" the word "these" 
falls on "is," and they quarrel ; that is, fall out. 
When a word falls it should fall according to 
Hoyle. 

True enough, you could work out most 
everything of the kind by yourself (depending 
largely on eye and ear) by transposing the 
words of a sentence, and by supplying words 
that seem to be missing. You could go at that 
sentence by saying: them is these, these are 
them, they are these, these are they. The 
laws of grammar, however, are a safer and 
quicker guide than experiments through the 
eye and ear. The drill you get in studying 
grammar educates the ear and eye, and makes 
them sensitive to quarrels in word families. 

A verb is often a bundle of verbs, prac- 
tically a compound word. Thus, He might- 
have-been-loved is as truly a single term as the 
91 



words in, as and much are one term when 
they appear as inasmuch. 

It is a legitimate thing in grammar to show 
the correct uses of shall and will, set, lay and 
the like, although that is a matter of common 
knowledge rather than of the law in language. 
Why we say, "Were I in your place," instead 
of "Was I in your place," also comes within 
the province of grammar. And so on. 

But everything essential in the law and prac- 
tice may be put into a small book. There is 
no need of four-fifths of the stuff found in 
the style of grammar bequeathed to us by 
the old-time schoolmen, who used to think and 
write in Latin. 

In the struggle between law and sense, law 
must go to the wall. Example : "I do not like 
John or James" — O. K. But, "John does not 
smoke or drink too much." — What do you 
mean ? 

Look at these. 

Look at those. 

Look at them. 

Each of these sentences is correct grammati- 
cally. It is sense, not grammar, that you must 
look to in many, many questions of good 
English. If you say, "Things I have to do," 

92 



you have not broken a rule of grammar in 
using those words that way. But you have 
been careless in the use of words, for I can 
not tell from your remark whether you mean 
things you want to do, things you ought to 
do, or things you are obliged to do. 

It is said that " Simplicity is one of the 
canons of high art." I believe that, for I am 
sure "high art" is necessary to enable us to 
say in a simple way what we mean. 

In writing about language it is usual to 
make some kind of display of learning, and I 
feel that I ought to yield a little to the pressure 
of custom. So here goes : 

At the beginning of all things there was 
force acting on matter through space in time. 
If you deny that, I am all at sea again. Accept 
my premise, and I can prove anything I want 
to prove. Conceding my premise, you will now 
step with me to the point in time when lan- 
guage was born. I will tell you the first word 
ever uttered by a creature. It is the parent 
word of all languages that ever existed. 

Philologists have tried to find out how lan- 
guage got a start, but they have taken the 
wrong method. They have worked backward 
93 



from what is to find out what was. I work 
forward from my premise. 

It is admitted by scientists that life origi- 
nated in water. The creatures of the primor- 
dial water had not what is called the gift of 
gab, but they could hear. The big creatures 
lived at the expense of the little creatures then 
as now. There was danger in or on the deep. 
It was known by the darting through the water 
of one creature to catch another creature. 

Let us examine the physics of this darting 
process. It started without perceptible sound, 
increased hissingly, and ended in a swishing 
noise. The victim heard that, and the mother 
fish watched out for it, and in the course of 
time nature helped the poor brainless creatures 
to imitate the awful sound in time of danger, 
and utter in advance the warning cry — f-i-s-h ! 

From this one primeval word, now so com- 
mon, we are able, as our philologists do in 
their reverse way, to build up the wonderful 
structure called language. The process is 
simple, now that it is started. You can see, 
for instance, how inevitably and naturally a 
false alarm among the mother creatures would 
cause them to stop halfway in their cry of 
terror, and exclaim, fie! instead of f-i-s-h. 

94 



Then, too, in some locality, say about where 
Scotland now shows above the water, they un- 
doubtedly called it f-u-s-h! From this you 
easily get fudge ! by well established philologic- 
al laws. 

In erecting our structure on these humble 
beginnings care should be used not to jump at 
conclusions, as some of our philologists do, 
since we are likely to fall into such errors as 
identifying eleemosynary with eels, not only 
on account of the sound, but because of the 
twisting shape and slimy feeling in your mouth 
when you try to get rid of that long word. 

It is true, on the other hand, that cats and 
dogs may be traced to land from the water, 
where they originally existed as catfish and 
dogfish. 

But the limits of this discourse, as our men 
of learning would say, do not permit me to 
elucidate the labial, guttural and glotteral 
acquirements of our preadamite ancestors, 
though I can assure you it is all accounted for 
by the one word that is accepted as our truly 
universal solvent — evolution. The thought- 
ful student should fall back on that word 
whenever he gets stuck, unless, perhaps, he 
95 



feels as I do at this present moment, that it is 
time to shut up shop and hike it for the ball 
game. 



[THE END.] 



96 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



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R. D. Yates, Checker Player, .... 1.00 

Kboo : The Counting Game, 25 

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Shorthand for General Use, 50 

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You and I and the Stars, 50 

The Little Grammar, 50 

New Method in Multiplication and 

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Midget Problems in Checkers, ... .50 

Life As It Is, 50 

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